Five Lawsuits Filed against Joliet Diocese Alleging Sex Abuse

By Janet Lundquist
Doings Weekly
May 16, 2013

http://burrridge.suntimes.com/news/20124605-418/five-lawsuits-filed-against-joliet-diocese.html

The Vatican told bishops around the world Monday that it was important to cooperate with police in reporting priests who rape and molest children and said they should develop guidelines for preventing sex abuse by next May. | The Associated Press

During the summer of 1984, Michael Gibbney, a priest at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Bolingbrook, took a group of 10 and 11-year-old altar boys on a “retreat.”

They went to Gibbney’s parents’ Lombard home, where Gibbney provided alcohol and slept with the boys in a camper parked outside the house, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Will County. That night, Gibbney kissed and fondled one of the boys – an act that set off a chain of confusing events that has led to a lifetime of misery for the victim, say his attorneys.

Contact: jlundquist@stmedianetwork.com